Five Empty Glasses of Courage
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: In one week, Hilda will be defending the Aquatic Capital as part of the Alliance's last stand. Tonight, she's just drunk enough to realize why her stomach always flips around Marianne, and the three words she most wants to say. (Hilda/Marianne, post-academy era, no major spoilers)


**Hilda realizes her feelings for Marianne a little too late.**

**Takes place during the Crimson Flowers (when Byleth sides with Edelgard) route, although it's not explicitly stated. There are also no major spoilers, but if you've already beaten the game, you may notice where I wrote around some.**

"What's the matter?" she groaned, in what was probably not the best response to the other girl's question. "I'm never going to be able to compete with my older brother."

"Hilda."

"Perfect grades, perfect military record, perfect – "

"You needn't compete with Holst," Marianne informed her.

There was a bit of an edge to her voice, a certain terseness that wasn't normally present. She was tired, they all were, but Marianne more so than most of them. Marianne had an entire army to heal. The only frontline medics in their army, and one of the only white mages in general apart from Ignatz, who'd dabbled in the healing arts during their academy days. And Hilda, Hilda was only a background character in all of this. As supportive as she could possibly be, but still no match for Holst. For their old professor. Claude certainly didn't seem to think so, at any rate, or he wouldn't hesitate so much to rely on her more often. He wouldn't be panicking as much, because they had neither.

Grumbling beneath her breath, Marianne added, "You don't need to be competing with Manuela either..."

"What?" Hilda squeaked. Screeched. Squeached. It was something in between a squeak and a screech, and she didn't know what to call it – but her head shot up indignantly, because if there was anything she did still know, it was that she and Manuala had nothing in common. "What? How am I competing with Manuala?"

Not like she'd had anything against Manuela either, but they had been _nothing_ alike. And, oh, Sothis, she shouldn't have shot up so fast. The room was spinning now now.

"I think you know what I'm speaking of," Marianne replied, and when she didn't, when Hilda only continued to stare at her blankly, she made a sweeping motion towards the countertop. "How many glasses have you drank?"

The adult Marianne was so much more confident than her seventeen year old self, more confident in her skin. Not as afraid to speak up against Hilda anymore. Hilda had never been afraid of speaking to her in the past, except now whenever she saw Marianne it made her insides kind of squishy.

"Uh… two?"

Obviously more than two. She was too tired to count. Leave counting to Claude – no, wait, Claude was supposed to be relying on her. Hilda squinted and counted them aloud, which took a lot more concentration than it should have.

"Five?"

"And how many of those were yours?" Mariannee asked in return. She must have ran out of patience, because she didn't wait before answering her own question, "All of them."

Maybe the pause had been for dramatic effect. Like a stage play. Oh, how Hilda wished Dorothea were still with them – Dorothea could probably tell her what that squishy feeling was. She thought she already knew, but her? For Marianne?

"Loosen up, Marianne..."

Suddenly, the mood turned somber. There was nothing to be happy about. That was why she had to drink. Because their was less than a week before Claudes forces departed to defend the Aquatic Capital of Derdriu, because their success at the capital was the Alliance's last remaining hope for surviving this war.

The odds were not in their favor. Try as hard as he may, but Claude couldn't hide that from her.

Marianne was lucky. She'd been spared so far, from the swords and spears and whatnot, and okay, maybe she wasn't as lucky in the sense that she saw as much gore as everyone else. But as far as Hilda knew, she'd yet to take a life.

"Claude's given us this opportunity to let loose a little, we should take it." Hilda sniffed.

She hadn't meant to, but she couldn't help it – a big, wet sniff, free of tears. She'd wasted them on petty things when she was younger, and now they were in the middle of a war, and she was dry-eyed and second in command only to Claude. Funny, wasn't it?

"I'm going to be… I'm responsible for a lot of lives at Derdriu, okay?"

A lot of deaths, too. Marianne looked down, stroking one of the glasses with the tip of her fingertip, as if she was thinking the same thing.

"I know how you feel, but there are better ways to pass the time," she replied. "Than drinking yourself into a stupor."

"Studying the scripture?"

"Please." Marianne squeezed her eyes shut. "Though it may appear as if the Goddess has abandoned us, do not make fun of my methods of coping."

"What? I'm not making fun of you?"

"Hilda – "

"Did you know I meant it when I said you were cute?" Hilda asked, feeling the words slur over her tongue. It was time for a change of subject. She segwayed into it as gracefully as a Demonic Beast traversing a glass shop. "You know. That time at the tea party… I said you were clumsy. And adorable. I didn't even get mad when you laughed at me…"

"I meant what I said too, Hilda," Marianne replied curtly. "You have so many wonderful qualities, yet you consistently fail to see them for yourself."

"Wait, wait, wait, why are you being so blunt? I wasn't finished talking! I meant what I said!"

Marianne quirked an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish. There was a lack of direct eye contact that Hilda didn't quite manage to notice. No doubt thanks to the alcohol, everything was foggy, except for the one thing she wanted to say – that was clear. She had to say it now, before the beer wore off, before she forgot the words, and so she began, putting as much levity into her voice as she possibly could:

"I wan' you to know, no matter what happens at the Capital… I'm gonna fight, really hard. And no matter what happens to me, I want you… I want you to make it through this alive."

Her throat felt so thick. Everything she'd believed before, about not having any tears left to cry, seemed to determined to turn itself on its head. Hilda sniffed again, and this time it was more than just her nose that was running.

Marianne looked concerned.

Yes, that was the right word. Like she wanted to reach out and heal Hilda, except she didn't because she knew that this was something magic alone couldn't fix.

"And I want you to see all of the wonderful things this world has to offer, and know that it gets better… Even if you have to do it without me – I'm not going to let Claude down, and I'm not gonna cease fighting for the Alliance. But if nothing else, if everything else – goes wrong, I just – I want you to _live_, Marianne. An' be happy."

"Hilda?"

"Because I love you."

The squishy feeling instantly fled from Hilda's insides. It had probably been more of a fluttery feeling, now that she thought about it. Like, her heart sped up and there was this warmth that encompassed her just from being around Marianne. But did that really matter?_S__he'd been right all along. That was love._

"You don't mean what you said," Marianne replied instantly.

She was flustered. Her hair was too short to fall into her eyes now, but she was doing that thing she'd used to do, an old habit from her academy days when she would hunch her shoulders and will everything around her to disappear. Why couldn't she understand that the last thing Hilda wanted was for Marianne's world to disappear?

"I do!" Hilda whined.

"No," Marianne repeated, "I think that's the alcohol talking. Go to bed, Hilda, and we'll talk about this tomorrow."

Marianne, who had not consumed six glasses of alcohol and was therefore the more sure-footed of the two, despite her natural clumsiness, helped Hilda stand and stumble back into her room. They didn't argue about it anymore on the way there. It was kind of hard, Hilda realized, when her head was buried against Marianne's side and she was staining her robes with snot.

She woke up the next afternoon with the vague sensation that something important had happened, although that quickly lost priority to the white hot pangs of a hangover. Marianne would not look her in the eye when she finally crawled out of her room for dinner, or more accurately, whatever remained of their supplies now that Claude wasn't attempting to ration them.

They did not talk about anything "tomorrow".

One week passed. Hilda grabbed her axe, tied her hair back one more time, and made good on all the promises she had made.


End file.
